SportsArt's Escape Ordinary Campaign Pays Off for Company

Woodinville, Wa — For club owners who think outside the box, Scott Logan has a proposition: Why not Escape Ordinary? Escape Ordinary is the theme of the campaign that SportsArt Fitness, Woodinville, WA, has been using since October 2006 when the company introduced its Xtreme Series product line. Logan, marketing director at Sports-Art, says the Escape Ordinary campaign works on many levels, including challenging club owners to look beyond the largest equipment manufacturers to consider the equipment that his company has to offer.

“You can choose products outside your normal prism,” Logan says. “It may actually help your business. It may give you a unique selling position to have different products if all your competitors have the same products.”

As part of the campaign, the company redesigned its Web site, industry trade advertisements and marketing materials to include outdoor imagery rather than just the typical image of equipment. The company also developed a package of in-club materials, 80 percent of which are geared to increasing member sales and referrals for club owners. The company offers products for club owners to give members who generate the most referral members and signage for club owners to use to support that recruitment campaign. Signage about SportsArt's products also is available so club owners can inform members about a new piece of equipment.

SportsArt's campaign even extends to escaping the ordinary manufacturing and shipping processes. SportsArt was one of the first manufacturers of self-powered elliptical trainers and developed an AC servo motor for treadmills that uses 32 percent less power than normal AC servo and DC motors. The system could save club owners with 12 treadmills $3,000 per year.

SportsArt has stopped using Styrofoam for its commercial product packaging and instead uses 60 percent to 70 percent post-consumer paper in its cardboard packaging. In its Woodinville, WA, operation, SportsArt recycles paper, reuses boxes for parts packaging and is replacing standard bulbs with energy-saving fluorescent lights.

This eco friendliness pervades the design of SportsArt's production facilities in Asia, too. Rainwater and wastewater from the production of walk belts at the Tainan, Taiwan, factory water the grounds. Treated wastewater from the painting process washes dirt off the street and keeps the grounds green. At the Zhuhai, China, factory, such wastewater is used to flush the toilets. The Tainan plant has tinted windows that let in sunlight but keep heat out, reducing the need for electric lights, and a sandwich-like exterior wall that naturally cools the building.

Although the environmentally friendly aspect of the company won't stop, the Escape Ordinary campaign will end, but not for another 12 to 18 months, Logan says.

“It's just so strong and has been so well received,” he says. The company's name recognition since implementing the campaign has increased from 30 percent two years ago to 70 or 80 percent today. The company's commercial sales also are up year to date from this time last year.

“As we look at some of the new products to be introduced in the fourth quarter [of this year] or first quarter [of next year], this campaign still has applications to those products,” Logan says.